Before My Life Began (62 page)

“Come on,” Aaron says, and feels his erection ease even as his anger grows. “Enough. I'm losing patience.”

“Carry me then.”

“I said I'm losing patience. Don't force me to—”

“Force
me
then, all right?” Her voice is husky. “Come on, big boy. Force me. Come on. We're among friends—”

“Same book say a man's peak at nineteen, Aaron. Bad news. We way past our prime, I guess.”

“Problems,” Susan says. “Problems and then more problems.” She slips out of Aaron's grasp, slumps down in a chair, smiles up at him. “Hi!” she says. “Glad you could make it to our party. Haven't we met somewhere before? Mmmmm.” She reaches up with her left hand. “Remember the first time we met? Oh God, when I saw your eyes I just melted. All those crinkles around them, and you so young I couldn't tell you were so old. Take my hand, please?”

He takes her hand, feels the cold metal of her gold wedding band.

“Hey, you two lovers, tell Lucius about it, we have us some story time. No shit, Aaron—remember all the stuff we be telling each other, coming up from Mississippi? He tell me about how you two meet, him cleaning out the stables at the fairgrounds, you wiping them horses' flanks, wondering how a guy so smart be caught shoveling out hot turds. Only what he don't tell me is how come a smart good-looking guy with all his talent, he be moving from town to town, working the county fairs, taking this job and that. Being a poor orphan boy don't explain
that
now, does it?”

Susan's head is on her arms, on the table. “God, he was so lovely then. You were just so lovely, Aaron. After all I'd been through, with Paul running out on me, all his crazy games. The second I saw your eyes, I knew I was safe. Home free.”

“Come on,” Lucius says. “Come on now, Aaron. I tell you true all about Carrie, so now you gotta tell me about what you doing there, and about them fingers. You don't, then I got nothing left but to believe in Paul's tales and I don't think you be wanting that. Oh yeah. Never could figure that either, when we were working for him, fixing that old house up all fancy, how it don't bug you none that he, you know, had
her
all them years.”

Susan lifts her head. “Susan,” she says. “Susan. In my presence kindly use my name.”

“Come on,” Lucius says. “Come on and ‘fess up, hey, Aaron. Didn't it bother you just a little, knowing he plowed your fields before you got there?”

“Gentlemen,” Susan says. “Proceed as if I were absent. Please. Frankly, I love it.”

Lucius reaches up, touches a ceiling beam. “Remember how I teased you ‘cause of your fingers, how you could put in all the cripple studs, and me, the strength and size I got, I'd put in jack studs. Jack studs and cripple studs, we got 'em all, Aaron, you and me.”

“Aaron Levin is not the possessive type,” Susan declares. She makes a V with her hands, rests her chin in the V, stares at Lucius. “Jealousy is the illusion of possession, so saith Aaron Levin. Didn't he ever teach you that?”

“And you believe it—that he never be jealous of sharing your body once upon a time with that other man?”

“Never never never never never. And I quote.
Lear
. Again: to see feelingly—that is the aim of life. The end.”

“Oh man, you too good, Aaron. Like always. You just too good to be true. I mean, I see guys around used to know Louise, I still feel something twitch inside, and you got to remember all I was able to endure down there with Carrie. And you know what? Louise, she be happy I feel that way. A woman
need
that, Aaron. A woman like to be pursued, see—like you to
crave
her—”

“Shh,” Susan says. “Everybody quiet now. Listen. I'm having an idea. Shh. Maybe after you get married, Lucius, you could wait a while and then get divorced. Then Aaron and I could get divorced. Then we could all switch around, like in
Couples
. Then maybe—”

“Hey, hey,” Lucius says. “Don't you be tempting me with shit like that. Louise, she take a rolling pin to you, she hear you talk that kind of stuff.” He turns to Aaron and his manner is suddenly sober, good-natured. “Come on, hey—don't you want to celebrate just a little? All the hard times gone by for us, friend. Joseph and his brothers, they be embracing all over the place, happy for us too, see? Moses, they even gonna let him into that promised land now, no matter he kill some son of a bitch. That's the way my heart's feeling today. The Lord been good to me, give me life, so I want to be good to the people I love, see? Anything's possible, Aaron, if you just open your heart.
C'mon—”

“Heresy,” Susan says. “Lucius heresy. Rewriting texts. Emendations. Taking God's name in vain, and the man claims to
believe—”

“Oh I do, I do, and He be forgiving me when I get fancy ‘cause He
loves
me, don't you see? The way He loves us all. And when one of us love somebody else, there be a little bit of the Lord in us—when you love somebody truly it makes everything else all right.”

“Disappear,” Susan says. “Lucius believes that love makes the world disappear, that evil is the absence of love, that when a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man it is our imitation of God, and that nothing else on earth matters except that love.” She grins. “Doesn't he make religion sound wonderfully romantic, sweetheart?”

“What God loves, see,” Lucius says, “is that we got so much to celebrate we be celebrating
Him
too: we got me getting married and Louise and Jen graduating and Susan in her big play. So come on, brother. Ain't you got something too?”

“Yes, but for now I think we should all go. We'll celebrate when we'll be fit to remember what we did.”

“That's true too,” Lucius says. He cups his hand around Aaron's ear. “Love you like a brother, Aaron. That be love too, see. She left that out—a man's love for his brother. Only problem is, for most of us, it don't start the sap flowing the way the
other
love does—don't move in us like His spirit moves—”

Susan stands, leans on Aaron. “What?” she asks. “I heard you. What is it? Don't tease. Come on—what do
you
have to celebrate?”

“I've decided to register for two art courses at the university. It's the real reason I was there today—”

Susan moves away. Neither she nor Lucius says anything and in the silence Aaron feels suddenly small and awkward, as if he is a little boy asking permission to do something. Have they heard what he said? Do they care?

“I was picking up registration forms before I went to the gym,” he offers. “If things go well I'm thinking of enrolling full-time in the fall.”

“Hey, hey—!” Lucius says. “Hey! After all them years, that takes courage, man. That be the biggest news of all, cause it's
new
. We didn't know that before, did we?”

“You're right,” Susan says, and she wobbles her head from side to side, to clear it. “But now. But
now
. Why now? I mean, why now? Why now, fair Aaron?”

She blows Aaron a kiss from the palm of her hand, then turns her eyes to Lucius.

“Oh come
on
, lady,” Lucius says. “That all you can say, you get news like that from him? That all you can say, he gonna do what you and me been wanting him to, what he been dreaming about since who knows when, what I been
praying
for—?”

“I saw snow on the ground this morning,” Aaron states. “Out there. The meadow was covered with it. It was very beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Lucius says. “Saw your tire tracks. Figured. Saw the new wood piled up. Jack studs and cripple studs, I think. Trusses and tie beams. Toe-nails and tie rails. Footings and furrings. Lucius and Aaron. Looks like we gonna be in business again, by and by, only I can't figure out what we be doing this time.”

“A surprise.”

“For me?” Susan asks.

“For us.”

“I work here too, you know.” Susan touches a stack of books, on the sideboard. “Susan's tutoring center. Upward bound. I didn't need to go down to Mississippi to help the poor colored folk. I can do that right here in the house my husband built for me. Never leave my family that way. This is the house that Aaron built. See, then, how good he is to me? See what a gift he brought home—a big, tall, handsome disadvantaged colored boy of our very own! That's Aaron for you—my faithful, thoughtful Jewish husband.”

“Easy now,” Lucius says to Susan. “Maybe that husband be right. Maybe we best be getting on home. Both of us. Maybe we best let him drive.”

“God, but those smothering Jewish mothers train them well, don't they? Nice Jewish boys, ever eager to please, to win the smiles and love of women who—who know how to hold out on them, yes? Would one of them ever come home empty-handed?”

“Sorry,” Lucius says to Aaron, his eyes sad and bloodshot. “I guess I started something I can't finish. We just thinking on having a little good time, me and Susan, is all.”

“But Aaron didn't have a Jewish mother like that, did he?” Susan says. “He had a whole fucking orphanage full of Jewish mothers, you see, except that the mothers were all little boys. Little boys he could please by being the best little boy of all. Little boys he—”

“Don't mock me,” Aaron says, grabbing her arm. “I won't permit it.”

“Hey, lay off, mister,” she says, pulling away. “You don't own me.”

“You can come too,” he says to Lucius. “If you want.”

“Only you got to relax more, man,” Lucius says. “She has a point. That's what I been hoping. To see you relax some the way you do when you at work, when you get
that
rhythm going. I be telling you to relax, though, ever since we meet, us and Nicky, you being so god-awful
serious
all the time. Oh you be a good man, Aaron Levin, only you want to
play
more, like the good woman says.”

“He relaxes by working,” Susan says. “Another Jewish Calvinist. He relaxes by locking his studio door. By dwelling in dark rooms. By hiding. By following his wife around.”

“You came out here to work, didn't you?” Lucius says. “All that new wood—you were planning to work today, right?”

“Yes.”

“You don't let us get in your way then. We put the shit away while you work, get some air. Sober up.”

“It's too late,” Aaron says. “Light's almost gone. I was going to work outdoors. I'll come back tomorrow.”

“Oh Aaron,” Lucius says, and when he does his voice is natural, full of affection. “We just came out here to unwind some, is all. All them pressures, hey—hard day practicing. Stuff. Classes. Louise. I get behind in my courses, Louise she have my ass on the carpet. Only I got me some good stuff, Acapulco gold, from this guy hangs around the team, best stuff I get in a long time, and I just up to my ears in Louise—”

“Up to your fillings,” Susan says.

“That too. And Susan, she beat from all her stuff, and we say, what the hell, we entitled sometimes. Don't mean to offend, brother. You go work a while, give us ten-fifteen minutes, the stuff wear off. Then we all be friends again, okay?” Lucius shivers. Aaron says nothing. “You still my friend, Aaron?”

“Of course I'm your friend.”

“Love you like a brother, no matter what. You know that?”

Aaron nods, watches tears slide down Lucius's cheeks.

“Don't,” Susan says, her hand on Lucius's hand. “I'm too dizzy. Please? I can't take all the damned
feelings!
Turn them off. For me, all right? Everything is just spinning too much. Goddamned wine.”

“What did Paul know?” Aaron asks.

“Too much. That man was no good, Aaron—evil through and through. I thought so first time I saw him, knew his game the minute I looked in his eyes.”

“Double agent,” Susan says.

“Lay off,” Lucius says.

“Double trouble,” Susan says. “Susan and Paul. Paul and Debbie. Debbie and Lucius. Lucius and Susan. Susan and Aaron. Aaron and Lucius.”

“Cool it,” Lucius says. He turns to Aaron. “Sorry, man. She'll be okay as soon as the stuff wears off. You go out there and work, like you wanted. You too pissed at us, all the time just standing there, glaring. We a sorry sight, for sure. You don't get out of here, give us some space, somebody gonna get hurt by and by.”

“He certainly works hard,” Susan says. “But he has no ambition, you see. That is what you must pay close attention to. That is why he might be a double agent too, see?”

“Cool it, lady,” Lucius says.

Aaron glances at Lucius, recalls the photo he saw while on campus, in the student newspaper, of a black man lying in bed, sheets rolled across his hips, blood splattered everywhere. “B
LACK
P
ANTHER
S
HOT IN
H
IDEOUT
.” Who ratted on him? Are the black students who say their brothers are being killed in their sleep and not, as the police claim, in shootouts, correct? Is it true that the Movement is full of blacks being paid by the government to bore holes, to bring everything down? Are the guns sold to the dead men sold to them by the same men who then go and tip off the F.B.I.?

“Why is it,” Susan is saying, “that Aaron Levin works and works, yet wants to stay close to home, safe forever within the little world he's built? Why does a man with such talents, such natural leadership abilities, spurn leadership itself? People would follow him. People
do
follow him. Lucius followed him. I followed him. Carl and Larry follow him. Nicky followed him.”

“I followed him—”

Jennifer's voice comes to him at the exact instant her hands are across his eyes.

“Guess who—?”

Before her question is out, he has whirled and whacked her on the shoulder, knocked her against the stove.